Even if you enjoyed the gameplay loop of the main game, I would advise you to wait for a few months before starting this DLC as it's basically more of the same. It adds a whole new island to explore, a couple of new abilities, and a few new interactive activities like archer challenges, wooden sword tournaments, and flute playing. Unfortunately, the plot doesn't add anything new despite its premise of looking back at Jin's past and the ambiguities of his father. It felt like they tried a little harder with cinematics, though.

Iki Island is a story expansion to the main game and forms part of the Director's Cut version of the game. The game follows Jin as he explores the dark secrets of Iki Island and how it links to his families past. This story DLC improves on the original game in almost evey aspect and as a result is one of the best story expansions to a video game ever made.

The game benefits from the smaller open world allowing for a more compact and fulfilling story learning about Jin's fathers legacy and the scars it left behind. The main villian in the DLC is the Eagle, who unlike the Khan, is more than a one dimensional villan and alongside some other new characters helps Jin explore his past.

Even the open-world aspects which were seriously lacking in the original title feel meaningful and important. The side missions finally had a bit of variety with the Ghost of Iki Island being a fun mission with a recognisable face. Activities feel vital to the story with them including flashbacks with your father, new interesting mythic tales and dyes that celebrate Playstation IP.

Finally, they somehow made Iki Island even more visually stunning as Tsushima and added to the already amazing gameplay options. This DLC addresses almost all of my concerns with the original title and produced a rich and impactful story to boot.

Played on PS5 via PS Plus
Also Available on PS4
Playtime: 9 Hours
Completion Date: July 17 2022
No Spoilers For the DLC or Main Game

Ghost of Tsushima: Iki Island is the first and most likely the only story expansion to Ghost of Tsushima. It's an action/adventure open world game developed by Sucker Punch Productions and published by Sony Interactive Entertainment.

Our story begins in the island of Tsushima. Jin Sakai, our main character, sees a village in need of help. He goes and investigates what happened. A new tribe of Mongols called The Eagle Tribe started capturing Iki Island. Jin thinks it's dangerous to let them capture Iki Island because they may come to Tsushima afterwards. So Jin decides to travel to Iki Island and stop The Eagle Tribe. Though unfortunately, Jin and Iki has a dark past.

The story is pretty good. Interestingly, we get a lot more about Jin's past in the DLC. Both in the main story and the side content. This does not feel like a side story at all. It feels it is required content to understand the world of this game going forward. Which is definitely a good feeling.

Because there is a new island, there are also new characters. I tried to find the english voice cast for the DLC characters but couldn't find them unfortunately. But all of them did a great job. Especially the villain, Eagle. Let's start with her.

Eagle is definitely better than Khotun Khan in the main game. You don't see her too much but you hear her. Don't want to give any spoilers so will leave it at that. She knows a lot about Jin which makes her terrifying. We have also 2 important new allies. Tenzo and Fune.

Both are great. But we see Tenzo a lot more and he definitely has a more important role to play. He and Jin doesn't trust each other first. And their relationship is dynamic. When someone does something, the other gets hurt or likes it. It's a relationship that goes up and down, just like how it is in the real life. It's not a straight line going from enemy to friend.

One final thing about the story is it's place in the timeline. I think it depends on the player. Because while you can travel to Iki starting with the Act 2 of the main game, i travelled it after i finished the whole main game and characters talked about the ending. So i am not sure. But i highly recommend you to play this after you finish the main story. Because it's harder and i think this being after the main story makes much more sense.

So story and characters are great. That's a good start. What about the gameplay? Well, it's actually the same. For better and worse. Let's talk about that difficulty thing. The Eagle Tribe definitely includes the hardest enemies of the game. And the final boss, oh my god. That was really hard. Took many attempts.

There is a new enemy type. Shaman. These should be your first target when you enter combat because they buff the other enemies, and they buff them hard. Without taking out the shamans, you don't deal much damage to other enemies and all of the enemies does that red, unblockable attack.

But as a player who got all of the skills and did everything in Tsushima, it wasn't that hard. Still, far from Souls difficulty. There is also a new skill. It's horse charge and it can be useful sometimes.

The combat is pretty much the same except the things i discussed. There is nothing new in stealth or ranged combat. Let's look at missions. There are 9 new main missions. Main story is short but sweet. Very sweet. There are many side missions. They are good but i have one key problem with them.

I don't know why but all of the side missions does not appear on your map or your mission log. There are 5 unwritten tales and some of the written tales, aren't written at all. If you will go for the trophy, you will 100% need to use a guide to finish all side missions. It was ridiculous.

There are 2 new mythic tales. They were definitely the best side content of the main game. And these 2 are great as well. One of them is a great story about Jin's past. That one has lots of platforming. While the other one is a standalone story, focusing on exploration and combat. Had a great duel at the end as well.

Question marks are back. No fox dens, that was great. More bamboo, more hot springs, lighthouses, enemy camps and i think there was only 1 new shrine. These are the returning activities. But on top of this, there are 3 new activity types.

One of them is called animal sanctuary. It's a new, nice mini game. You need to tilt your controller to follow a path which will create a music. This will make the surrounding animals happy and you will be able to pet them. There are cats, deers and monkeys. These also gives some background about Jin's mother.

There are archery challenges. Nothing special, it's what it is. Though it's tough, it's also fun. And there is the third one. I don't want to spoil anything, they are really good. Let me just say this. They will give more background about Jin's father.

The game looks and sounds great. It also plays great. I played it on PS5, 60 FPS from start to finish. Did not feel any frame drops. And it was definitely less buggy then the main game. Which was great. For trophy hunters, it's a short, sweet list, just like the DLC itself. But like i said, some side missions not showing in the map causes problems. You will need to use a guide. It took me 9 hours to get both the story trophies and the exploration trophies.

Ghost of Tsushima: Iki Island is more Ghost of Tsushima. The story and characters are great. The gameplay is good too but i definitely started getting bored towards the end. Because while the main game constantly gave you new skills and enemy types, Iki Island just throws more enemies at you. New side missions and activities are also great.

In the end, it's a DLC. It does the job. It's more of what you got in the main game. Is it worth the price? I am not sure. But i'm sure that you at least need to experience the main story. It expands on Jin in great ways.

Iki Island is a much better expansion than the average open world DLC, which is often content to add more auto generated landscape or nodes on the same map. The new mechanics are great, new enemy types push and expand the already excellent combat system, and the landscape is still among the most gorgeous in games.

Unfortunately Sucker Punch is owner by Modern Sony, and that means that about a third of any given play session is spent watching long pointless walk n talks while semi human robots spit insipid dialogue at one another while the game desperately tries to convince you that a colonizing imperial force genociding people is a morally complex idea. Every cutscene is still unskippable, even incidental dialogue that's just shot in these incredibly awkward profile shots to hide how under animated they are, and then long stretches of "gameplay" are just holding a stick up while more pointless dialogue drones on and on and on, you can't even walk off the proscripted path, the game will autocorrect your movement to follow the story, why! This and Horizon and Days Gone and even GoW to an extent show just how shallow these modern open worlds are, the bulk of the game is still as tightly linear and controlled as Uncharted 2 (sans the tight pacing and well composed level and encounter design), if not more so, there's just also ten hours of side content where you Repeat The Loop if you care to. At least Odyssey in all its copy pasted glory let you try to approach missions in a slightly freeform way.

I don't like these types of angry reviews, I don't like to bitch about the hard work these devs put in, it's just so frustrating. I want to enjoy this game, I have enjoyed stuff like it, I even got over it for the main game, but when everything a company puts out has its pacing just pummelled to bits like this it's so tiring, Sucker Punch deserves better

As compared to the base game, this expansion just misses a step for me, but it is still really great and if you like the base game then it is worth giving this the time. It is a quick playthrough with some interesting aspects to it.

The combat itself is still very compelling, with the minor additions doing more to detract than bolster it.
The basics are a new enemy type that buffs all the enemies in an encounter. They are super weak, so it effectively just means you kill them first, which mixes things up only slightly and isn't that compelling. Another minor addition is that enemies now swap stances, forcing you to swap to effectively combat them. I found the stances to be the least interesting part of Ghost of Tsushima's combat and bringing more attention to them doesn't do the game any favors. It is even more apparent that the actual differences between the stances are pretty unnoticeable and entering the correct stance doesn't have enough obvious benefit to really work as a mechanic I care about.
An additional non-combat mechanic of a grappling hook doesn't add a ton of new gameplay -- just some new movement challenges/interactions that are just lock/key for the most part. I would have liked if there was more opportunity for the grappling hook to switch up how I approached areas or dealt with enemies during combat.

Environments are incredibly beautiful, just like in the base game, this is the most visually compelling open world game I have played.

The new archery challenges were satisfying and fun and I like that they gave me a reward that enabled me to complete them all, it was a quick, fun diversion.
The animal sanctuaries were less impressive. Though narratively interesting (they flesh out a bit about Jin's mother), the presentation and gameplay just feels fairly janky and unsatisfying.

The narrative here is a high point. Iki Island is a place harmed by the Samurai of Tsushima in much the same way the Mongols are invading in the base game. It is cool to see Jin dealing with his memories of this place and his father, how his father died here, and what he owes or doesn't owe to these people. I liked seeing Jin struggle with this, though the mind-altering poison conceit felt unnecessary and ineffective to me.
There are a couple of cool side quests that feed directly into this narrative as well. One that stood out for me has Jin recovering his father's horse armor as he does for legendary heroes/villains in the main game. It has taken on a mythical and demonic status with the people of the island, which is a great lens through which to see all of these quests you have already completed. You know both sides and it is clear that it isn't quite as simple as Sakai being either a hero or a villain.

This is a great expansion. Worth giving a try if you enjoyed the main game!

Iki Island improves on a lot of the content that the base game had which is exactly what you want from a DLC, that's why I think this DLC is even better than the base game. It has longer and more interesting side quests, a really interesting main story about Jin's father and his actions against the raiders of Iki Island. Jin tries to redeem the name of his clan and retake the island from the mongols. There are some new activities which are fun and not overused, the island is even prettier than Tsushima. 100% is a breeze and a joy, the combat is also more difficult which was really needed imo.

You will not be disappointed by this DLC so go ahead and play it. ;)

I'm focusing mainly on the Iki Island DLC here. For the strengths and weaknesses of the actual game, read this:
https://www.backloggd.com/u/pali/review/608138

This addon is a great addition to the main game. The environment and atmosphere are still fantastic and there are a few new mini-games and more optional collectables. Especially the shrines which give you armour reminiscing of other Playstation titles are neat. But the best thing is the story. Lowkey, it is just another island that is attacked by Mongols. But this time they bring some sort of poison with them trying to subdue the Iki inhabitants. Jin is struggling here even more with the loss and earlier actions of his father which happened on this very island. Will Jin follow in his father's footsteps or will he weave his own destiny? Another adventure of trust, strangers, old and new friends and blood-thirsty enemies is about to happen. If you liked the main game then Iki Island will expand your gaming experience greatly. It is more of the same and better.